How to Restore / Reset Your iPhone 3G/3GS/4

In the past I’ve written about my experiences of Apple’s big iPhone 3.0 software update in which I’ve had my doubts over useful the update itself was and found that after two months I had to try to restore my (then) iPhone 3G PAYG as I suspected (or hoped) the problems I had were due to some corrupted files and not a hardware fault.

Now as much as I like to do my fair share of Apple-bashing like any decent PC user and coupled with the highly annoying iTunes sluggishness we experience in Windows, I have to admit that they have made managing your iPhone day-to-day in terms of synchronising, backing up and restoring it when needed very simple and effective.

Unfortunately, iPhones are not without their faults, issues and problems like any other mobile phone or mini-computer, the worst one I’ve experienced a few times now is everytime you try to start an app, it would then immediately crash! Handy eh? Suffice to say, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to become familiar with restoring and resetting the two iPhones that I’ve owned so far. My latest issue that when I connect up my iPhone 3GS to sync with iTunes is that it says “Sync in Progress”, only syncs certain files and never finishes no matter how long you wait, perhaps not the most serious of problems, but annoying none the less. It does however give you another great opportunity to test out restoring your iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4!

As more people get iPhones, I’ve had a few people asking about this and what happens when you want/need to reset your iPhone, well this is what I do, press this button in the iTunes software application…

It will then spend the next 30-60mins getting itself back into working order!

Why have I been particularly impressed by how you go about resetting and restoring your iPhone?

Well thanks to the regular automated backups that are taken when you synchronise your iPhone with iTunes, it means that within around an hour, you can have your previous backup image of what was on your iPhone restored to your existing iPhone you’re resetting or a new replacement iPhone, like I did when I upgraded to the 3GS.

I was glad to see that everything was as it used to be, not just your settings, applications and contacts, but also all your previous text messages, call details, music, podcasts and photos!

Normally when you reset a mobile phone handset, you lose everything, or at best you may be able to re-synchronise and get your contacts back, but I’ve been truly surprised and pleased with how well Apple’s iPhone / iTunes Restore function actually works.

Have you had cause to have to reset your iPhone 3G, 3GS or 4 yourself? If so, why? And were you as happy with the result as I was?